Friday, November 08, 2013

The Colombian government and negotiators for the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) agreed on Wednesday 6 November that FARC
would be able to participate in democratic politics once a final peace
agreement is ratified. Javier Ciurlizza, Latin America Program Director,
discusses the implications of this advance in the negotiations.

Q: What is the significance
of the announced agreement between the Colombian government and the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) on political
participation?

This partial agreement provides a much-needed boost for a peace
process besieged by public scepticism, spoilers and the uncertain will
of the FARC to really move forward. There was fear that talks had
stalled after the first breakthrough agreement (on rural development)
five months ago. (See Christian Voelkel’s 18 October post.)
Political participation is one of the most sensitive and difficult
issues for the parties to agree on, so it is remarkable that they have
managed to make such progress on the specifics of FARC participation in
Colombian democratic politics and on other forms of political
participation and guarantees.
However, this does not mean that the final agreement is around the
corner. Under the principle that “nothing is agreed until everything is
agreed”, the document signed yesterday is provisional. The parties will
also need to work hard on several political-participation issues they
have left for later talks, and also on the complex and fundamental issue
of transitional justice. How transitional-justice problems are resolved
— particularly regarding accountability for serious crimes — will
greatly affect who will be able to participate in politics. The parties
will also require both imagination and flexibility if they are to agree
rapidly on drug policies, termination of the conflict, reinsertion of
combatants, and supervision and implementation of the final agreement.

Q: How does the new agreement envision political participation of former guerrillas?

We only know what is in the joint communiqué of the parties and not
the full text of the agreement. We do not yet know the concrete
mechanisms that would enable the constitutional and legal reforms
necessary to allow FARC’s conversion into a legal political party or
movement. A special commission will be set up by the current political
parties and movements, and reviewed by a group of experts, to hammer out
the details.

Q: How likely are existing Colombian political parties to welcome this new competition? How do they figure into the process?

Although most of the current political formations have expressed
support for the peace talks and are open to some degree of political
participation for FARC, there is an increasing polarization between the
government and those who support its leadership in these negotiations
and political forces aligned with former President Alvaro Uribe, who
consider the talks illegitimate. As the legislative and presidential
elections (March and May 2014, respectively) approach, the peace process
will be the central issue for the campaigns. An increased presence of
Uribe and his allies in Congress (where he is running for the Senate at
the head of his party’s list) will put further obstacles in the way of
legislation required to approve and implement the peace deal.

Finally, although there is formal support for the peace talks within
the governmental coalition, President Juan Manuel Santos will need to be
extremely persuasive in convincing the public that the concrete
mechanisms which will allow FARC members to take public office,
particularly at the national level, are in the best interests of
sustainable peace and security.

Q: What are Special and Transitory Peace Electoral Districts?

One concrete idea advanced yesterday is the creation of Special and
Transitory Electoral Districts (“circunscripciones”) in the areas most
affected by the armed conflict, which would have a special
representation of their interests in the House of Representatives in
addition to the ordinary list of congresspersons. This would imply the
direct appointment of representatives in areas with FARC influence,
allowing a temporary representation until an eventual political movement
is created and established to represent the interests of the guerrillas
in legal politics.

This scheme was used in 1991 in order to allow former guerrillas to
form political parties and have time to organise themselves before
participating in direct polls. However, there will be some resistance to
allowing FARC to, in effect, have representatives in Congress who are
not elected in some way or another.

Q: Does the agreement include means for truth-finding and reconciliation?

The agreement signed yesterday expressly avoided questions of
transitional justice, including how to prosecute and punish serious
crimes, provide reparation for victims and guarantee non-repetition.
(See our most recent report, Transitional Justice and Colombia’s Peace Talks.)
However, the parties did agree on the creation of National and
Territorial Councils for Reconciliation and Co-existence in order to
promote “a culture of reconciliation” involving respect for “ideas of
the political opposition, social and human rights organisations”. It is
still pretty obscure what these mechanisms will produce and how they
will work.

Q: What has been the reaction to the agreement in Colombia?

There is a general feeling of relief in the sectors supporting the
peace process, including the government. This agreement should provide
some momentum to President Santos, who will announce before 25 November
if he will run for a second four-year term in May 2014. It will also
provide some damage control for FARC´s image, although much more will be
needed to reverse decades of the distrust that most Colombians feel
towards the guerrillas.

This feeling of relief will be strictly limited in time and scope.
President Santos has seen his popularity steadily erode; it is now below
30 percent (one of the lowest in Latin America). There is also strong
resistance to moving forward on the other topics of the peace agenda.
The greatest test will come when the parties discuss
transitional-justice mechanisms, as this will reveal the price they are
really willing to pay to reach the termination of one of the oldest
armed conflicts in the world.

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